Could Rothwell be one of the UFO hotspots of West Yorkshire?

In a recent online report Yorkshire has come out on top as the part of the UK that makes more reports of UFO sightings that any other part of the country. In fact the county has made 842 reports since 2008, almost double what neighbouring county Lancashire who lie in third on the list.

It is always well documented that Holmfirth is the top UFO hotspot in Yorkshire, but after some research, it appears our very own Rothwell has been the location for a few sightings of its own…

Here are a few of those sightings and the reports made:

16th December 2002A number of objects spotted in the sky – quite large, long, thin and shaped like cuttlefish. Joined to become a rectangular, vertical light, skimming along.

1st September 2008

Rothwell/Leeds West Yorkshire An orb shaped object, with a disc shape underneath, was in the sky for about ten to fifteen minutes.

8th November 2008Carlton nr Rothwell/Leeds West Yorkshire – The objects looked like Chinese lanterns. They were orange in colour and very bright. The objects moved very fast and were extremely manoeuvrable.

21st April 2009Formation of lights over Rothwell on saturday night around 21:30 hours while waiting to be picked up by taxi,myself my wife and two friends saw people looking up to the sky and as we looked were amazed to see lots of lights in the sky flying, or appeared to be flying in formation.We must have witnessed at least 20 lights.

17th February 2010 I drove my dog to Temple Newsam in Leeds to walk her , atapprox 11 p.m. When i let her out of the car she ran off , my dog is not the best behaved at all times but she had disapeared.I stood for about 20 minutes shouting her. Whist stood in the dark i was aware of a brightness above me but i didnt look up imediatly as i was angry over the dog .As i looked into the darkness of the field for my dog i saw a oval shaped light passing through low candy floss type cloud.No noise at all but i estimate object to be approx 1000 mtrs away.Very hard to estimate size of the light but at a guess size of 4 double decker buses.sighting only lasted no longer than 1 minute.A relative saw object from diferent location on same night.I dont believe in E.T, but i did see a ufo.3 nights after sighting i saw same light again about 2 miles from first location,this time the light was bigger in size but still using cloud for cover,also object moving much faster

15th November 2010Myself and my wife were travelling on the A1/M1 link road from Colton to Rothwell, as we travelled adjacent to Templenewsam house we witnessed a large white/blue glowing object travel directly above us at great speed. The object was too big to be a shooting star and far too fast to be a plane or helicopter. It was rather like a comet or meteorite. I do not recall it having a ‘tail’ or a jet stream. It’s possibly the weirdest thing I have seen, at the time myself and my wife were having a conversation, on witnessing it we both looked at each other and said ‘what the hell was that?’

9th January 2017Whilst letting my dogs out i noticed a group of white lights in a triangle formation with three red light running up the inside left of the white lights. The craft was moving slowly from north east to south east, it passed over my head and carried on into the distance. I could tell the object was solid because it had a very distinctive black outline. the sighting lasted around 10 seconds. Very strange i am so used to seeing aircraft but this was nothing normal at all, I felt very alone and was frozen whilst watching this craft. My dogs that i was letting out at the time started barking at the object as it flew overhead! I really thought it was a plane until it got closer and could see it definitely was not! I felt as though i saw something i should not have and was quite shaken.

Each year over 100 similar sightings are reported to the MoD, who are then required to investigate every sighting submitted to them in order to establish whether the UK’s air space has been compromised. In recent years the UK media have reported several sightings over the county and even scrambled fighter jets in response to reports of a UFO heading into UK air space from the North Sea.

Have you ever seen something strange over the skies of Rothwell? Do you think there is any truth in UFO’s or visitors from another world? Do these sightings have a rational explanation such as weather balloons, Chinese lanterns or even groups of birds? Or could be Rothwell be similar to Roswell in more ways than just a few letters….. leave a comment below!

One of our readers has sent us this image which was taken in the early hours of the morning one weekend. The image shows a formation of 9-12 lights, they are quite faint in the sky and can not be explained.

If you have an idea of what these could be please add to the comments.